I wish to go to Walt Disney World® Resort
Daniel
2
brain tumor
Daniel Celebrates With Mickey Mouse
Daniel is an intelligent three-year-old who likes to read board books and is always ready to explain the colors of each vehicle that passes by his house. He likes to play word games and practice typing letters and numbers on the computer. Daniel has achieved all these special learning milestones while bravely battling a brain tumor for much of his young life.
Daniel was first diagnosed at nineteen months when doctors discovered and worked to remove a rare and fast-growing golf ball sized tumor wrapped around his brain stem, known as ATRT. The young boy would undergo several rounds of induction chemotherapy, high dose chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and thirty-five rounds of radiation when a second, larger tumor and tumor cells in his cerebrospinal fluid were found. After changing treatment protocols, Daniel and his parents were met with the good news that the tumor had shrunk in half and the tumor cells in his cerebrospinal fluid had disappeared. Despite this positive change, Daniel would be diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, or pre-leukemia, in that same week.
After receiving this new diagnosis, Daniel’s medical team introduced the family to Make-A-Wish. “It was something to look forward to after a really, really disheartening secondary diagnosis,” his mom Sarah says. “It was something happy and joyful during a difficult time.” When thinking of his fondest wish, Daniel thought of something he wanted to do long before he was introduced to the possibility of a wish. “He was born on Mickey's birthday, he has a stuffed Mickey he sleeps with every night, he has Mickey-themed everything,” Sarah continues. “Danny wanted to meet Mickey Mouse, and specifically to go to Mickey's house.”
Daniel’s trip down to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida would prove to be a trip of many firsts, including this first plane ride. “It was amazing watching Danny fly in his first plane and experience Mommy and Daddy's happy place - riding rides for the first time and watching his first parades,” Sarah says. For Daniel, he had two favorite parts of his wish. The first was, of course, meeting “The Big Cheese” himself, Mickey Mouse. The second would be spending uninterrupted quality time with all his favorite people. “All of his favorite adults didn't have to go to school or go to work and could spend all of their time focused on him without any doctors or chemotherapy or anything,” Sarah continues.
Daniel’s wish not only provided his family with a much-needed break from the day-to-day realities of battling a critical illness but put them in a more positive frame of mind regarding his treatment plan when they returned home. “So much of your life as a cancer family rotates around treatments and side effects of treatment and sadness and the emotional whiplash of that roller coaster, feeling like you're always holding your breath or breathless,” Sarah says. “Our trip was like temporarily stepping off the rollercoaster and taking a full breath for the first time in a long time. He wants to go back, so that may light an additional fire to beat this awful disease. For a kid who remembers nothing but the hospital and quarantine as daily life, being able to go somewhere he's always wanted to go and somewhere where he could experience just being a kid for the first time was definitely life-changing.”
Our trip was like temporarily stepping off the rollercoaster and taking a full breath for the first time in a long time.
Sarah
Daniel's Mom
